


Teach a Skeleton to Draw (with two hands, and Please Don't Kill Him)

by Oyyo



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Children, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Narrator Chara (Undertale), Nonbinary Chara & Frisk (Undertale), Reader is Frisk (Undertale), Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 00:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyyo/pseuds/Oyyo
Summary: If you have to play host to the parasitic spirit of an angry ten year old, you might as well get some drawing lessons in return.





	Teach a Skeleton to Draw (with two hands, and Please Don't Kill Him)

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic from 2016/2015. Gave it a face lift and decided I liked it enough to post.
> 
> Chara is a jerk, but isn't evil.

Chara is whining in the back of your head about how annoying the skeleton is, and you ignore them in favor of trying to draw in the coloring book Papyrus got for you. They aren’t even fighting for control, they’re just...whining for its own sake.

_ You are not good at this _ , they inform you, and you ignore them as you select some crayons. It’s not to be mean, you just want a little peace. Papyrus is nice but loud (he’s yelling answers at the TV…), and Chara won’t hush. The puzzles Papyrus gave you took effort, and your eyes are still swimming from the word jumble you failed at earlier.

_ Oh, yeah. That too. You’re so dumb, I can’t believe you think that stupid jumble is harder than a crossword. _ You shade unevenly-pressured lines in the gingerbread house. Instead of brown, you’ve turned it a golden color, so it’s more like a graham cracker house.  _ Mushy cracker with mold growing on it, _ Chara helpfully adds.

You reach for another color, and color in the window panes a nice red. You can’t get it to stay inside the lines, and you frown at it.

_ Looks like blood _ , Chara informs you, but that’s wrong. Blood is darker. This is more like an unfortunate licorice accident. You come to the decision that whoever built the house has as little coordination as you do, and messed up setting the panes. That’s okay, because it’s a gingerbread house and they’re gonna invite all their friends to eat it anyway.

_ That’s stupid. _

“You’re stupid,” You mumble back, then feel extremely contrite. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what, human?” That’s Papyrus, who you just forgot was sitting four feet away watching a game show. You smile and shake your head. Chara scoffs,

_ Sorry for calling me stupid? You’re such a baby. _

That’s okay. If you're a baby, so is Chara, because you're the same age. You tune out the loud protesting-- _ I’m a hundred years older than you _ \--as Papyrus jumps off the couch to come inspect your work.

“That’s a good job, human! Are you sure you wouldn’t like another puzzle, though?” You shake your head again, because Papyrus doesn’t have jigsaws just now. Just word puzzles, and you aren’t good at words. You thought he got that, because he said that junior jumble is harder than a crossword, but he still keeps asking.

It’s okay, though. You smile at the skeleton and he smiles back, turning his gaze to the TV, though he doesn’t go back to the couch--just sits next to you. You don’t have that much time to yourself--Papyrus really only settles for this half hour of TV, and then launches himself into the rest of his routine, which could be more cooking or running and playing with you, or a meeting, or any number of things.

_ You just can’t manage anything that involves thinking. How sad. _ You cringe, a little, because that’s more viscous than normal. Chara sees your weakness, and digs in.  _ You can’t even color well, and it takes you forever to read! Can you even write? _

You remember comments like that from other people, back before you...fell. You’ve never been good at reading and writing and speaking, and your hands always shake. People used to make nasty remarks, and your parents would scoff, but they didn’t care  _ that _ much. Just enough to sigh about their terrible child...

Chara goes silent as you go sad, and you feel that they’re a little disturbed by your thoughts.  _ Sorry _ , you think, but they don’t respond.

You put your head down on the cool floor, and nudge your feet against Papyrus’ knee. He’s listing off all the answers to the quiz questions, and you listen, but you mostly color. You make the grass blue, just because you can, and remember a movie with a bunch of kids and a place made of candy where you could eat everything, even the red mushrooms, which you weren’t supposed to ever eat. You had read that mushroom fact in a book.

You  _ liked  _ to read, but reading didn’t like you. It was hard work, and your head hurt easily.

_ Hey, _ Chara pipes up in the back of your head. You want to look at them, but you can’t, so you just open your eyes wider and shift.  _ Do you want me to help you draw? _

You look at Papyrus, and then look around for anything sharp. Crayons won’t do anything, and your stick is outside…

_ I won’t hurt him, I just wanna draw, _ they insist. You consider it, and wiggle your left fingers. That’s the hand away from Papyrus. You can give them that… maybe.  It’s probably not a good idea, but you don’t sense any rage coming from Chara.

It’s not really that Chara had gone after the Woshua earlier, but they’d lost their temper when you had been trusting them not to hurt anyone. They’d been trying to scare the creature off by making dirty jokes, and something had...changed. Rather than switching tactics or running away, Chara had used your body to scream at the creature and had lashed out with the stick.

The attack hadn’t killed it, but you were...scared. Chara had a much greater capacity to hurt than you did. Since then, you’d refused to let Chara take over. Since then, they had been whining about wanting to control your body.

_ I pick the colors _ , you think pointedly, and they agree. You think about coloring the candy-stone path in purples and yellows, and they pick lilac, orange-yellow and violet. The feeling is just like your own trembling hands--you’re directing things, but there’s an extra movement you can’t control. Usually that’s frustrating enough to make you cry, but you know you can slam your hand down on the ground, and Chara will stop being in your hand.

Chara waits until you’re done testing your control over your hand from the wrist down, and you let them drag your arm around the page, coloring the path with nice, neat circles. After a bit, you get bored of watching and shift so you can start shading the sky in green. They’re mildly offended at your nonsensical choices, but leave you to your shading.

“Wow, human! I did not know you could do such a thing!” You look up at Papyrus, and both your hands stop coloring.

_ Hello! I need to see the page to color! _ You offer a mental apology, but focus on Papyrus.

He’s scrutinizing your page, and you realize it’s a pretty big difference. You color like a five year old, while Chara’s looks like it could be a real illustration.

_ That doesn’t even make sense, it is an illustration. _

_ Like a children’s book, _ you clarify.

“I think Sans is left-handed, too, but you’re proficient with your right hand as well! You must have trained long and hard to do so well with both your hands! Human! I will strive to be as amazing as you with my own hands!” With that, Papyrus dashes across the room and up the stairs to find a different coloring book for himself, presumably to start his training.

You feel a bit bad, because you’re technically cheating, but Chara scoffs at you and you turn back to the coloring book.

With two people (?) working on the drawing, it gets done much faster. You think it’s great, and Chara is mildly disgusted and insists you turn to the blank backside of the page. You do, and let them start drawing in black lines as you hear Papyrus tromp down the stairs.

He has his own car coloring book, but when he sees that you’ve turned to a blank page, he does the same.

“Alright, human, I am ready to begin my training!” He looks eager. You smile, and sit up, and Chara drops the black crayon.

_ Can you please show him? I remember what to do… _ But you can’t actually do it. Chara sighs, but moves your left hand to fit under Papyrus’, and grips one of the crayons he’s brought. You decide to let Chara have your right hand, too. They adjust Papyrus’ grip on the crayon, and start making simple, looping circles in the paper.

Then they do the same for his right hand, and then demonstrate how you’re supposed to do both at the same time. You had a teacher who wanted to help you with your handwriting show you that, but you came to the underground before you could really try. You decide you should try that too, later.

“I see! So I just keep doing this?” You nod. “Like Undyne’s push-ups, but for my hands! I understand now, human! Thank you for showing me!”

You nod, and feel a twang of almost-affection from Chara.


End file.
